Zombie master sentenced to five years

A young hacker has been sentenced to nearly five years behind bars for running a zombie network. 21-year-old Jeanson James Ancheta was sent down for 57 months - four years and nine months - for running a zombie network and profitting from it by runnning pop up ads on the compromised system as well as hiring it out for spam campaigns and denial of service attacks. As with many of these cases, Ancheta proves to be the lowest hanging fruit when it comes to collaring Net criminals. ...more

GPL v3 drives a wedge between Free Software and Open Source

A potential split in the Open Source movement has opened up. Linus Torvalds, the man behind the Linux operating system that is one of the largest users of the GPL says he will not be migrating the Linux kernel to GPL version 3. The GNU General Public License is the bedrock on which the Free and open-source (FOSS) movement operates. ...more

Government denies climbdown over workplace snooping

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) claims that it always intended to give employers the right to monitor their workers' correspondence, despite reports earlier this week that it buckled under the weight of industry pressure. The statement came as the DTI announced that it would be extending the consultation period on regulations giving firms the right to intercept employees' e-mail. These regulations are an adjunct to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Act, which received the Royal Assent in July. ...more

IT helpdesk workers see pay fall ten per cent

UK IT helpdesk workers are getting poorer as more companies turn to offshore outsourcing, new research has revealed. A report issued by analysts iProfileStats and The Association of Technology Staffing Companies (ATSCo) has revealed that pay for helpdesk workers fell on average by 9.6 per cent in just one year, while consultants gained an extra 10 per cent. ...more

Half Brits go online for Christmas spree

A new study reveals the extent of online shopping in the run up to Christmas 2005. Research company IMRG states that as much as half of the adult population in the UK clicked online as sales increased 50 per cent. It seems that shoppers spent ?5 billion online during the 10-week run-up to Christmas, compared with ?3. ...more